Personal, Social & Emotional Development 

We read 'Sharing a Shell' by Julia Donaldson. We talked about sharing and how sharing makes you feel. We had lots of fun taking turns playing Pop Up Pirate. At first, Mrs Selwood took all of the swords and kept them to herself. We decided she wasn't sharing. She gave a big handful to 2 children and everyone else had to sit and watch. We decided the best idea would be fore everyone to have a sword. Mrs Selwood made sure every person in the classroom had a go. We were all so happy having a lot of fun together. 

We talked about how to cross the road safely. The Caterpillars were very knowledgable about road safety and we had great fun pretending to be cars and pedestrians. When the cars stopped, we looked both ways and crossed the road safely. The Caterpillars know how to stop, look and listen. We also talked about how a Lollypop person can help us cross the road. We loved waiting for the Lollypop person to step into the road and stop the traffic. 

Physical Development

We draw pictures of ourselves this week. We drew the same picture in September and then wrote our name. The improvement is amazing! The children have developed their fine motor skills and their name writing has improved and their pictures have much more detail. 

We have loved being back dancing! To link in with our topic of 'Hot or Not', we have been dancing to Waka Waka and Frozen. The Caterpillars love being in the Dance Studio. 

We had a great time at Skipping School. 

Literacy

We have launched Drawing Club. Drawing club is about developing our imagination and story telling. We have our own club with code words that make our drawings come to life.
Our Drawing Clubs are based on story books. We read a book about the arctic so imagined our own polar animal. We drew where our polar animal lives.

We wrote up the results of our 'Keeping warm' experiment. All of the children have been busy in their new phonics groups learning new things and it was great to see those skills being used in our fabulous writing. 

Maths 

We have been busy ordering numbers like a staircase. We have played 'hide and seek' to find missing numbers and played lots of games. We have climbed up 5 stairs and noticed for each next step, we needed one more. This was the same when we built staircases using cubes. We have developed a deep knowledge and understanding of our learning!

We have been practising our subitising. Looking at the dots on a dice and knowing what number it is. We played a number track game with a partner, trying to roll the right amount to get to number 10 first. We had lots of fun and had so many winners. 

We have been looking at '5 Little Speckled Frogs' and how there are always 5 frogs. Even if some frogs are on the log and some in the pond, there are always a total of 5 altogether. We used the STEM sentence of '5 is made of 4 and 1, 4 and 1 make 5' 

We had lots of fun exploring the rhyme in many different ways, including 5 little speckled Freds! 

We have been exploring 6 and 7! We have found a flashy, fast way to show 6 and 7 on our fingers by using 5 and 1 or 2 more. We found ways to show 6 and 7 on a dice frame when one if full, adding a second gave us space for 6 and 7. We built towers using 6 and 7 bricks and found the tallest one. 

We have learnt about more, fewer and equal amounts. The Caterpillars investigated the shape, size and colour of the items we are comparing doesn't matter, its about the number in each group. We compared toys, pencils, children and even children with adults. The answer was always the same, the group with the bigger number had more. 

Understanding the World 

We have conducted a science experiment about how animals keep warm in the snow and icy water. We recreated a seal's blubber and tested out 2 different gloves, a wooly one and one covered with lard. We found our hands were warmer in the icy water when they were protected by the 'blubber'. 

In RE this term we have been learning about New Year celebrations, including New year in this country and also Chinese new year. The children enjoyed learning the story and acting it out using masks of the 12 animals in the story. 

The caterpillars have been consolidating their learning on Chinese new year by ordering the animals in the race, learning about the lantern festival and making their own lanterns. They did a great job with their cutting skills!

We carried our an experiment to find the best way to keep warm. We had 5 activities;

• reading under a blanket 
• riding a bike 
• putting on a hat, gloves and scarf
• playing throw and catch 
• digging in the sand

We tried every activity and came back in and held a vote for which activity we thought kept us the warmest. The Caterpillars votes for riding a bike! 

Which ice cube will melt the quickest? We carried out an experiment to see if salt, sugar, water, the fridge or our warm hands melted the ice the quickest. We made a prediction and then tested our theory. We watched the ice melt back into water and talked about the process of how it became ice in the first place. 

We have been reading Handa's Hen and finding out about Mondi. We have compared the hot setting of Africa to the cold places we have learnt about previously. We talked about the weather in Africa and compared to our weather and how there is a contract in temperatures. We went on a hunt to find Mondi’s chicks in our outside area. 

We loved exploring in the trees! The Caterpillars had fun choosing their learning through many activities. 

• Parachute games 
• What's the time Mr Wolf
• Den building 
• African Drumming 
• Bean bag balancing 

We talked about Shrove Tuesday and how it will be in the holidays. We read the story of Mr Wolf's Pancakes and decided to make our own. We worked hard to make the batter in the morning, and the cooked and ate them in the afternoon. We added sugar and lemon to our pancakes and thoroughly enjoyed them. 

Expressive Art and Design

We have been learning about Edward Tingatinga! He was an African artist who developed a bright a vibrant style. We had a go at painting in the style of Edward Tingatinga and practised painting with dots. It was a hard skill to keep lifting it off the page as it was so temping to think it was a paintbrush and do a long stroke. Well done Caterpillars. 

We drew step-by-step giraffes and lions in preparation for painting the in the style of Edward Tingatinga. The Caterpillars listened carefully to the instructions and had a go at drawing their own. 

We painted our step-by-step giraffes using dots in the style of Edward Tingatinga. The Caterpillars using great hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills. 

We got the glockenspiels out! We are learning to play a note on the first beat of every bar. The Caterpillars tried very hard. It takes practise to see the note we want to play, hit the right one with our beater, and not play it in between. We were very impressed with their musical skills. 

We completed our Edward Tingatinga art by painting a sunset wash background. We stuck our giraffe on the sunset and are very proud of our final piece. Well done Caterpillars.